The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes was first published on 13 December 1893. The volume was published by George Newnes, the firm which had also produced the Strand Magazine since January 1891 in which all twenty- four of the extant Sherlock Holmes short stories had appeared. The eleven stories featured in the Memoirs originally appeared as part of an uninterrupted sequence across thirteen issues of the Strand beginning in December 1892 with ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ and ending with ‘The Adventure of the Final Problem’ in December 1893. These thirteen instalments were reduced to eleven stories in the Memoirs first because ‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’ was not included and, second, because ‘The Adventure of the Naval Treaty’ was just under twice the length of the other stories and was consequently split between the October and November issues. The version of ‘The Cardboard Box’ that appeared in the Strand is included here as a fully-annotated appendix. The story was eventually included in a later collection, His Last Bow (London: John Murray, 1917). The reasons for these irregularities will be discussed in a later part of this introduction. The text used in the creation of this volume is based on the first book edition rather than the magazine version of the stories. The merits and consequences of this decision are discussed in the ‘Essay on the Text.’ The accompanying explanatory notes are designed to be historical rather than analytical or discursive. These matters are always subjective but I determined to avoid offering any views on plotting irregularities, Holmes arcana or canonical speculation. Where words require short definitions I have relied upon contemporaneous dictionaries, encyclopaedias or almanacs wherever possible. For notes requiring fuller context I have relied as much as possible on magazine and newspaper sources from the latter half of the nineteenth century. The notes will hopefully go some way to reproducing the experience of the Memoirs’ original readers, their common reference points and general worldview.